I've seen some remarkable cutscenes from custom campaigns like Legacy of the Confederation and Fall from Grace. They are made with early 3D animation back then it seems, but I never really figured out how you guys had the proper software to make them, nor even know how they were put into the game. Can anybody tell me how the creators of similar campaigns made the files and what formats were used to make them? Also, can you tell me if they have to be 3D only or are they able to work with live-action? What software requirements is needed to make these custom cutscenes for campaigns?

They used the same things you use for portraits, RAD video tools. They were smacked and imported in a similar manner and just overwrote existing cinematic files. No idea on the exact specifications for creating one but I do know that they were likely exported into individual bmps by whatever editing programme they used to make them in, since they had to be smacked into a suitable file by the RAD tools.

They use 3ds max (or something like it) which is almost always pirated unless they somehow got a student license, due to the insane cost of the programs. None of them are live action, no one has ever possessed that kind of resource except Archangel in recent times and it was never used to something of that extent. The process of making the cinematic is as simple as animating everything out for the camera, rendering it to frames, and then converting that to smk like you would a portrait (with old rad tools).

The requirements greatly depend on your target results. Evidently, those cinematics weren't heavy on requirements seeing as they were made with ancient hardware. But even basic renders can take 30 minutes to hours a frame depending on the lighting.

This scene,

Took around 20-30 minutes on an AMD Athlon X2 6000 (3.0ghz) and significantly less time on an i7 920 (my current cpu) by a factor of around 10. But it was still too time-consuming to render things the traditional way, so I never looked at it again.

Rather, I would recommend you look into Unreal 4 as you can get nearly the same quality you can out of any given 3ds max/maya vray plugin and in realtime, and building the actual cinematics will therefore only require you to know the ins and outs of the animations. Unreal 4 is free on top of it, but you'll still need 3ds max or maya to make your assets in.

Anyway, I wanted to learn how it was done. Also, does this type of thing work in blender? I know it isn't exactly something everyone uses, but it's for campaign design honestly. Also about that pic you showed me; what StarCraft campaign does that come from? I've never seen that before.

Yeah you have fun with standard formats being reverse engineered trash, ass backwards UI and lacking basic functionality 3d applications have had for well over a decade. There's a reason why professionals stick to Maya, 3ds max, zbrush/mudbox and others. If you have to ask how a cutscene is made you sure aren't in a position to talk about any of those applications.

(I've had to troubleshoot issues with blender more times than I can count, the most recent of which being only 3 days ago where it managed to produce obj files that crashed everything they touched on contact. Great!!!)

Armageddon Onslaught has been public since 2009, so I'll just assume you're trolling. For everything else, there's always google.

Well Okay... after a heated fight with a long-time friend of mine who says who used to hang out here at CC and called me a "Shithead!" I looked up the Armageddon Onslaught mod and realized what it was... My bad. Also, true that blender wouldn't work with the specifications needed to replace any cutscenes in the StarCraft Engine because everything else involved is hard-coded...

Thanks for the info... One last question though... I saw these ships from one of the mods you made... They look sort-of familiar, so where did you get these from? If they're not related to any familiar media, than how did you make them?